


Taking My Medicine

by SexuallyMonsterous (Alli_Bialystock)



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 00:50:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4120434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alli_Bialystock/pseuds/SexuallyMonsterous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared has been acting strange all month, and Richard wants to know why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking My Medicine

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: So, this piece was basically inspired by my first experience with anti-depressants, so I hope it's not taken as a political pro-or-con kinda thing. I imagine Jared would try anything he could think of to make himself more functional and I can only imagine that the opposite thing happening would drive him crazy.   
> Let me know what you guys think!

Something was definitely wrong with Jared. 

Richard had seen him stressed before, but never quite like this. Even at TechCrunch, he had been filled to the brim with energy and his own Jared-esque brand of aggressive helpfulness. Over the past week, the circles under his eyes had returned with a vengeance, he was constantly drinking coffee and Red Bull, and he had started forgetting the most basic things, like meeting times and passwords. His computer was enshrouded with Post-Its, and yet he could never quite figure out what he was supposed to be doing.

“It’s been like two weeks,” Dinesh commented quietly while Jared was in the kitchen. “What the hell is going on with him?”

“Maybe he’s sick,” Richard suggested.

“Oh, good,” Gilfoyle said. “Really glad he’s touching every fucking thing in the house, then.” 

“Whatever it is, you need to figure it out,” Dinesh said to Richard. “This is worse than that time he got stranded on the robot island.” 

Richard hated to admit it, but Dinesh was right. Jared definitely seemed to be spiraling. 

The problem was that Jared was who everyone always went to when they were spiraling. 

Richard was awful at helping people. Even if he was given the tiniest job, he would manage to fuck it up. Humans were significantly harder than anything else he’d ever learned. In math, there was always a right and wrong answer. With people, the right and wrong things kept changing, and it felt like there were a million ways to screw it up and only a tiny handful of ways to make it better. Jared was patient and understanding and empathetic. He knew how to do this stuff. Richard was always so deep in his own head that he could never figure out what other people could possibly be thinking.

Technically, though, it was probably his responsibility to check in with Jared: partially as a concerned employer, and partially as the only person in this house who could be trusted to have anything even approaching a sensitive conversation about Jared’s feelings. 

In the kitchen, Jared was slumped over the counter, his head in his hands. His fourth coffee of the day sat in front of him. Richard noticed his shirt was untucked. 

“Um, Jared? Are you okay?”

Jared looked up with a bewildered frown. “What? Oh, yes. I’m sorry, Richard. I’ll be back to work in just a second. I just needed a… a break.”

Richard didn’t know what to say. On one hand, it was a more than reasonable request, and he was more than happy to honor it. On the other hand, Jared had never once even suggested taking a break. Whatever was wrong, it was worse than Richard had thought.

“Yeah, uh, of course. Take your time.” Richard shifted his weight from foot to foot and dug his fists into his pockets. “You seem like you’re maybe a little stressed.”

“Just tired. I’ve been having some, um, personal issues. But it’s not terribly important,” Jared added quickly. “It won’t affect my work. I can still do everything the same as I have been, I promise.”

“That promise has already been broken.” Richard turned to see Erlich striding into the kitchen in his robe, bong in hand. “Get your shit together, Jared. We’re trying to launch a multi-billion-dollar corporation here. We can’t have you dicking around looking up bird trivia or whatever you’ve been doing.”

“Erlich.” Richard tried to interrupt. His stomach was churning. 

Erlich paid no mind. He glared into the coffee pot. “And,” he said, turning back to Jared, “if you’re going to be drinking this much coffee, you need to pay for it. I’m not buying high-quality coffee beans from South America just to see you pour it all down your gullet in a week.” 

Richard went to speak again, but Jared beat him to the punch.

At first, Richard didn’t even recognize the emotion on Jared’s face. His eyes were narrowed, his lip was curled into a snarl, and he was drawn up to his full height. Richard had never seen Jared angry before, and he was starting to wish he never had.

“You know what, Erlich?” Jared growled. “Fuck you.” 

Erlich’s eyebrows raised slowly as the words washed over him. “What the fuck did you just say to me?”

“I said fuck you. You’re being condescending, incredibly harsh, and about as hypocritical as a human can get. You do not get to order me around just because you own this place. I contribute twenty times as much to this company as you do. I can’t believe you would ever even have the gall to imply otherwise.”

Jared snatched his keys off of the table. “I’m very sorry, Richard,” he said, his voice shaking. It seemed to be taking all of his effort to keep it at a normal tone and volume. “I’m going to go out and get something to eat. Is there anything that you need from me?”

“Um. No.” Richard and Erlich exchanged wide-eyed glances. “If you want, you know, you could probably just take off for the day. We’ve got it all under control.” 

“I don’t need the whole day,” Jared said. He was chewing ever so slightly on his bottom lip and his eyes were even wider than usual – he was on the verge of tears. “I can do this. I just need a quick break.”

“I know you can do this. Of course you can. You’re Jared.” Erlich went to speak, but Richard gave him a small kick and continued. “We just don’t have anything else for you to do today. The other guys are a little behind on some stuff.”

“They are? They never mentioned it.”

“Yeah, well.” Richard shrugged as if to say what can you do? 

“Richard is right,” Erlich said, the confidence in his voice noticeably diminished. “Taking a day would give them some time to get their asses in gear.” 

Jared nodded, looking down at his keys and gulping. His shoulders were slumped, and he looked like a puppy who had just been swatted with a newspaper. “Okay,” he said finally. “I’m sorry. I’ll… I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Sure, yeah. Take your time.”

Richard and Erlich barely breathed until the front door closed behind Jared. “Jesus fucking Christ,” Erlich murmured. “What the hell just happened?”

Richard shrugged.

“I can’t even be angry,” Erlich said. He looked at Richard with a dazed stare. “I mean, I was at first, but now I’m just worried. Either Invasion of the Body Snatchers is becoming a reality, or that guy is going to snap and murder us in our beds.”

“He’s not gonna murder us.”

“How the fuck do you know? He has keys to our house and he knows where we sleep! You’ve gotta talk to him, Richard. We can’t have him going off like this all the time. Or drinking my Brazilian coffee every day.”

“Oh my God, please just forget about the coffee! How are you worried about the coffee right now?” Richard wasn’t sure why he was getting so indignant, but he was. “Something really fucked up is going on with him.”

“That sounds like your fucking job to take care of. I didn’t even want to hire him. I’m not his fucking babysitter.” Richard poured himself a cup of coffee. “I don’t care what’s going on with him, I don’t want him killing me or drinking my coffee. Fix it.”

Richard waited until most of the guys had gone to bed to wander over to Noah’s guest house. The light was still on inside. Richard knocked gently. “Hey, Jared? It’s Richard.”

Jared opened the door. His eyes were slightly red. “I’m so, so sorry about earlier, Richard,” he said. He still had the beaten puppy look. “I didn’t mean to go off like that. And I swear my work will get better. I’ve had some things going on, but I’ll fix it, I promise.”

Richard held up a hand. “Listen, man, I’m not here to, like, yell at you. I’m just kinda worried. What the fuck is going on?”

Jared sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Would you like to come in?” 

Richard followed Jared into the tiny guest house. Jared slid down onto the bed. Richard, seeing no alternatives, sat beside him, trying desperately not to bump into him. 

“My therapist recommended that I try an anti-depressant,” Jared explained. “She said she thought it may help me relax a bit more, but it seems it’s having the opposite effect.” 

“I didn’t even realize you were seeing a therapist. What’s been going on? Is it bad?”

“I’ve been seeing one for a very long time. It’s nothing new. I just have some difficulties with anxiety and whatnot.”

Richard wanted to know what he meant by “whatnot,” but he didn’t want to ask. Instead, he said, “I wouldn’t have guessed that. You’re always so in control.” 

Jared smiled bitterly. “I know. I’m very functional on the outside. I’m very good at doing things for other people. I’m not always terribly good at doing things for myself. Working usually keeps me from feeling the things I don’t want to feel. But with this medication… it’s like it won’t stay inside anymore. Like I can’t just force my emotions away when I have things I need to do. And on top of it, I’m always tired and I can never remember anything.” When Richard stayed silent, he added, “I think I’m just going to stop taking it. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it would affect my work like this when I started.”

“How have you been feeling, though?”

Jared’s eyebrows raised, as if the thought hadn’t even occurred to him. “What do you mean?”

“You said it was supposed to help you with all of your, you know, emotional stuff.” Richard was reaching for ways to say it that wouldn’t sound judgmental. “Is it helping? Like, are you feeling better?”

Jared shrugged. “Sometimes. I guess I haven’t been quite as worried about what other people think of me.” He gave Richard a shy smile. “Which I think you noticed today.” 

“That’s great.” 

The two sat side-by-side in the silence. Quiet usually hung over Richard like a guillotine, pushing him to speak before his relationship with the other person crashed and burned, but this was a surprisingly companionable. He hadn’t even been this comfortable being alone with Bighead. 

“I don’t think you should get rid of the medication just yet.”

Jared frowned. “Excuse me?”

“I think you should give it a chance.” Richard shrugged. “I mean, if it’s making you feel like shit, then you should stop taking it, but it sounds like taking at least something would be good for you.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Yeah. I mean, you do a ton for everybody. You’re always thinking about what other people need. You should take care of yourself first.” Richard scuffed his heel against the floor. “I know we don’t let you do that enough. I guess we just didn’t really see that something was wrong.”

Jared leaned over and rubbed his eyes, planting his elbows on his knees. “I just want to be able to do everything you need me to do. I want to be able to help you.”

Richard put a hand on Jared’s thin shoulder. “You help plenty. You were right when you told Erlich you do the most for the company. We’d be completely fucked without you.”

“No. That’s not what I mean. I mean I want to help you. I want to be able to be there for you and take care of you, and I can’t do that if I can’t push all of my own stuff to the side anymore. I want to be able to look out for you. I lo… I like you.”

Richard’s chest ached. It felt like his heart had suddenly inflated. Jared’s cheeks went pink. Neither looked at the other. 

“I, uh, like you too,” Richard said, his tongue stumbling around the words.

“You do?” Jared’s voice came out in a hoarse whisper. He continued staring out the dark window.

“Yeah.” Richard swallowed. “Yeah, I do. A lot. Really a lot.”

Richard felt long, thin, cool fingers slide between his, and his stomach fluttered. He had never really understood the phrase “butterflies in the stomach,” but he suddenly knew what it was like to feel his stomach squirm without thinking he was going to vomit. “Thank you, Richard,” Jared murmured, his breath warm in Richard’s ear and unexpectedly close. Jared gently took Richard by the chin and then, miraculously, unbelievably, almost ridiculously, Richard was kissing Jared’s soft lips and making a squeaking noise that sounded way too much like one of the many Goddamn ferrets staring at them for him to feel comfortable. 

When they parted, Richard found himself on his back, looking up into Jared’s lust-blown eyes. “Hold on,” he whispered, putting his hands on Jared’s chest.

Jared sat back on his heels. “I’m sorry!” he gasped, horrified with himself. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to cross a line, I swear, I didn’t realize!” 

Richard couldn’t help but laugh. “No, Jared, God. It’s fine. I just wanted to say something.” He grabbed Jared’s shoulders, pulling him back on top of him and slipping his hands into his back pockets. “I’ll let you take care of me, but only on one condition.”

Jared smiled. “Absolutely. Anything, anything at all.”

Richard kissed the tip of Jared’s nose. “You have to let me take care of you too, okay?”

Jared beamed. Richard never actually got an answer, but considering the extremely enthusiastic way Jared used his mouth, he had to assume the answer was yes.


End file.
